trickle
Americanverb (used without object)
-
trickles,
present (3rd person singular)
-
trickled,
past participle, past
-
trickling
present participle
-
to flow or fall by drops, or in a small, gentle stream.
Tears trickled down her cheeks.
-
to come, go, or pass bit by bit, slowly, or irregularly.
The guests trickled out of the room.
verb (used with object)
-
trickles,
present (3rd person singular)
-
trickled,
past participle, past
-
trickling
present participle
verb
-
to run or cause to run in thin or slow streams
she trickled the sand through her fingers
-
(intr) to move, go, or pass gradually
the crowd trickled away
noun
-
a thin, irregular, or slow flow of something
-
the act of trickling
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
tricklesimple
-
tricklessimple
-
have trickledperfect
-
has trickledperfect
-
am tricklingprogressive
-
are tricklingprogressive
-
is tricklingprogressive
-
have been tricklingperfect progressive
-
has been tricklingperfect progressive
Past
-
trickledsimple
-
had trickledperfect
-
was tricklingprogressive
-
were tricklingprogressive
-
had been tricklingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of trickle
1325–75; Middle English triklen, trekelen (v.), apparently sandhi variant of strikle, perhaps equivalent to strike (in obsolete sense “flow”) + -le
Explanation
To trickle is to weakly flow out of something, like a faucet. A trickle is like a drip. There are a lot of ways water can flow, but one type of slow dripping is called trickling. If your shower is only releasing a trickle of water, you're not going to get much of a shower. If it's raining — but only a trickle — you might not need an umbrella. A slightly leaky roof is trickling. A trickle is the opposite of a downpour or flood. Trickling can also be called dribbling.
Vocabulary lists containing trickle
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Yosemite Falls is dry and Vernal, Nevada and Bridalveil falls are usually down to a trickle in September.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 8, 2026
And that could stimulate more activity for companies involved in building and financing these projects, which will eventually trickle down to the broader economy, the Wells Fargo team said.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 10, 2026
"The benefits of AI have to trickle down to people," he says.
From BBC ● Aug. 4, 2026
The power cuts have made normal life almost impossible, with each outage also meaning that water supplies trickle away and ceiling fans slow to a halt.
From Barron's ● Aug. 3, 2026
The glow, the actual light in the Mirror, began to trickle out of the hole in the middle of the Mirror, just like smoke rising out of a chimney.
From "Half Upon a Time" by James Riley
“And that trickles down to these interview subjects seeing the increased quality and going, ‘I like the way these things look.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 10, 2026
Pistachio’s ubiquity is also new as the nut trickles down from TikTok virality to mass market explosion.
From Salon ● May 6, 2026
Oil prices would likely need to remain lower for a longer stretch of time before it trickles down to retail prices, which tend to fall much more slowly than they rise.
From Barron's ● Apr. 8, 2026
As this money trickles through the economy, it stands to transform the fate of businesses tied to everything from artificial intelligence and data centers to dental offices and medical spas.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 26, 2025
The floodwaters recede; it is only salty sweat that trickles down my face and into my mouth.
From "Ophelia" by Lisa Klein
Updates about the search for survivors have trickled out slowly, while the death toll has remained unchanged since late Wednesday.
From Barron's ● Sep. 11, 2026
Details about what’s in the new trade deal have trickled out.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 21, 2026
That White House staffers apparently felt comfortable anonymously attacking Holmes in personal terms suggests that the impulse has trickled down too.
From Slate ● Aug. 18, 2026
Press access and related battles have trickled down to the local level, too.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 24, 2026
The silent seconds trickled past, and Harry remained where he was, frozen, gazing at the place where Malfoy had vanished...
From "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" by J.K. Rowling
Auen and Walker delight in trickling real historical information — the result of painstaking research they both conducted studying the Chronovisor — through the film at a slow but steady, always compelling pace.
From Salon ● Sep. 7, 2026
Details are still trickling out, but here’s what we know.
From Slate ● Sep. 4, 2026
The money starts compounding immediately instead of trickling in over the five years.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 2, 2026
The bubbly 28-year-old sits on the porch of a bungalow at the temple complex and says hello to the other women, who start trickling into the room.
From BBC ● Jul. 10, 2026
Runnels of water were trickling through the arch from the uphill side, and the bare earth was beginning to turn into mud.
From "Watership Down: A Novel" by Richard Adams
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
